Friday, June 8, 2018

Iraq’s parliamentary election continues to take twists and
turns. After a cabinet committee reported
on its investigation, Prime Minister Haidar Abadi stated that there were
serious violations. The committee suggested
there be a manual recount of 5% of the votes, and the cancellation of foreign
and displaced voting. It also blamed the Election Commission for the problems,
prompting the premier to ban all travel by its members. The Election Commission
has been attacked because it stood by the results, and didn’t seem to quickly
respond to all the complaints. The cabinet committee and Abadi’s comments
implied that the Commission was involved in the irregularities as well.

Parliament took further action against the results as well.
It voted
to amend the election law, cancel the voting by displaced in Anbar, Diyala,
Salahaddin and Ninewa, and conduct a recount. The Election Commission is also
to be replaced
by nine judges. The president must ratify this action, which could take up to
two weeks. The parties that attended the session included Abadi’s Nasr, Vice
President Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law, Sunni parties, the Kurdish opposition,
and the Arab Coalition and Turkmen Front from Kirkuk. What these lists all have
in common was that they did poorly in the vote. Some parliamentarians also lost
and were hoping that a recount would allow them to maintain their seats. There
has been convincing
evidence of cheating in places like Sulaymaniya and Kirkuk. However, this move
in parliament and previous ones seemed to be led by resentment over the outcome
more than cheating. A recount is unlikely to dramatically change the results,
especially because all the major lists finished with around the same number of
seats. Therefore, the only real motivation of these actions is to further
undermine the election process. Iraq is a developing democracy, and this
election and the 2010 one show that the elite still believe they can manipulate
the system to their will, especially when they don’t like the results.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com